Back to Basics Part 1 – Do I Need A Website?
Following Phil’s post on Friday, which was about how to choose a web design company, we thought we’d go back one step further.
Our Back to Basics guide will talk you through everything you need to know about setting up your own website. We will be posting a series of articles discussing domain names, hosting, web design and SEO. All the posts will be jargon free – we promise.
So onto Part 1… Do I Need A Website?
With an estimated 51million of us in the UK now online, getting a website for your business makes perfect sense.
If you decide to make the commitment to having a website which is easy to use and easy to find, you could be opening up a huge potential market.
Online retail is now growing six times faster than high street retail and UK companies are exploiting this trend by selling products through e-commerce websites.
Even if you don’t want to sell online, research shows that 83% ofUKshoppers use search engines to research a purchase before they buy. This is also true for consumers looking for services, making a website a cost-effective way of advertising your company.
However, a web site which isn’t seen by your customers is like a shop with no front door. It is essential that your website can be found by using search engines such as Google, which is where SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) comes in.
SEO is about making your website easily found when people use search engines to look for keywords related to your business. We will be discussing SEO in more detail later in the series.
If you would like more information about getting your own website please email helpdesk@esterling.co.uk. Tune in for the next Back to Basics when we will be discussing domain names.
Choosing the Right Web Design Company for You
Choosing the right web design company is a tricky thing. There’s a lot at stake, and if you end up with a bad design, bad code and are nowhere to be found in the search engines then you’re at a massive loss.
Here are a few pointers to help you narrow down your search and find the perfect company for you:
Look around!
Don’t just go with the first company you find in Google. Ask people you know or local businesses with good websites which company they used.
Is their own website designed well?
There’s nothing worse than a web design company with a terrible website. If a company can’t design and maintain their own website well enough, will they do that for you? Although you don’t need to like their design, a well designed site is a good indicator.
Do you like their design work?
Every designer should have a portfolio. Have a look at their work, and see if anything catches your eye. Always remember that every client wants a different thing, so bear in mind that they may not have the same aims as yours.
Do their sites work well?
There’s a lot more than just the design. Check their sites in different browsers to see if they break or look same across the board. Make sure they are easy to navigate, well thought out and convey the client’s message well.
Have they made a site with features you want?
Although it’s unlikely that they will have made something to your exact specification, they may have made a site with certain parts you need e.g. ecommerce, content management system etc. Don’t be afraid to contact the company and ask them for specific examples of things you are after.
Do their sites rank well?
Try and find some of their portfolio sites in Google, obviously without using their company name! You want your completed website to be easily found, so make sure that they can do that for you.
So what’s next?
Gather a shortlist of the best companies you have found and approach each one with your specification. Remember don’t always go for the cheapest option. It is more important to go for a company that understands your needs, you can communicate well with and will deliver you exactly what you set out to get.
Why is Duplicate Content Bad for my Website?
Nobody likes a copycat – especially Google. That’s why having content duplicated on multiple websites is a big no-no when it comes to SEO.
Google will reward your website for having unique content – and will punish accordingly if it doesn’t. Using the same copy from the web throughout your site, for directory listings; or even copying and pasting from another site (naughty you!) can seriously harm your search engine rankings.
We have recently been working with a website which had great rankings throughout Bing, Yahoo and other major search engines, but was not getting anywhere in Google. A search using Copyscape showed that the content on the home page was also being used in a number of directories such as Applegate.
Google was therefore penalising the website thinking that the text had simply been copied from the directories. By re-writing the content for the directories we recovered the search engine positions for this site in Google – happy days!
Make sure that you check your site for duplicate content – and each time you join a directory don’t just copy and paste! Take a little time to re-write your content and Google will love you for it. And if your copy is sloppy, simply get in touch with us about our copywriting service.
The Next Big Thing: Social Commerce
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder): “If I had to guess, social commerce is the next area to really blow up”
The race is now on to monetise the network of relationships between people by tapping into the influence they wield over their friends’ purchasing decisions. Companies are looking to build social interaction into e-commerce; from group-buying sites through to product-recommendation services.
Transaction is now becoming more entwined with word of mouth communication. Social networks are turning products into conversations. Retail was in the last decade transformed by e-commerce. In this decade social media will transform e-commerce.
People thinking of ways to spend their money are often looking at what their friends – people they trust – have bought. The idea is that pressing the checkout button isn’t the end of purchasing online – there is another stage where you share what you’ve purchased with friends. Which, in this day and age, means sharing on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
But what exactly is Social Commerce? It is e-commerce that involves social media, supporting customer input and interaction to assist in the online buying and selling of services and products. This includes adding features to your website such as ratings and reviews, social media integration and marketing through Facebook and Twitter, forums and communities, sharing and referral buttons, support for social shopping features and mobile based applications that link into your site.
Involving customers means increased engagement. Sites that have added social shopping features have reported sales increases of up to 50%.
Research has shown that just by adding customer driven ratings and reviews, traffic volume and order value can be boosted up to 25%. On-site customer reviews need to be distinct from external review sites, which have not shown as much impact. Believe it or not, negative reviews have little to no impact on sales.
Endorsements by friends show double the conversion rates but you need to influence the right people. The efficiencies and scale of the social internet can change retail or service businesses overnight.
How do you tap into this ?
You need a strategy for engaging your customers.
You need a strategy for targeting the right people.
You need a strategy for building trust in your company.
Talk to eSterling about building a social commerce presence. Either through social network marketing, integrating with Facebook, or even adding a distinct social presence into your site build.
Catch the Blogging Bug
Blogging. Everybody’s doing it.
It seems that blogging is the ‘Dear Diary’ movement of our generation. But why are we all doing it? For our own personal memories? For fame? For posterity?
Whatever the reason, the increase in personal blogs has rocketed in the last five years and as a cheap way to share views and disseminate information you can’t get better. And finally where young, hip out-of-work students lead, the world of business follows.
Blogs for business are now, quite literally, big business. Easier for search engines to find and rank, blogs are being used to improve web site ranking and act as ‘gateways’ into a business’ main site.
Blogs are generally perceived as more objective than traditional sales literature, can be less formal and can be wider ranging than a simple list of products and services. With information typically presented in bite-sized chunks, blogs are easier to read than a page of heavy web site text and are more likely to be shared around with other web users. They are also designed to stimulate thought, provoke comments and encourage discussions. They can be used by businesses to filter information to their potential customers. By building up a regular following, your web presence will begin to improve bringing the associated benefits of more business.
And blogging really is addictive. Once the initial hump of writer’s block has been successfully clambered over the floodgates open and suddenly you’re dying to share. Used effectively as part of your online marketing strategy, the sky’s the limit. Don’t believe me? Just try it! Ask eSterling to set you up a simple blog. You never knew you had so much to say!
Why Smart Phones are Taking Over the World
It’s amazing to think that the number of mobile internet users looks set to surpass desktop users within the next four years.
Just take a look at the facts:
- 89% of theUKpopulation use a mobile phone [Source: Ofcom, October 2010]
- 54.3 million smart phones were sold in the first quarter of 2010 alone. [Source: Gartner, via AOP Digital Landscape Report, June 2010].
- 7.1 million people access the internet through a mobile phone [Source: Internet Monitor Survey, Kantar Media, September 2010]
- Smart phone usage in theUKis growing up to 70% faster than inEurope. [Source: comScore/GSMA MMM, via AOP Digital Landscape Report, June 2010].
These figures really show how much we’re in love with smart phones. And it’s easy to see why – as Claire discussed in her post last week –smart phones can be used anywhere and everywhere. The internet is available to your customers on the go and as long as you have a mobile website, your customers can find you while they are on the train, waiting for the bus, on their coffee break or even when they’re having their hair cut!
If potential customers can find your mobile site from their smartphone, they are more likely to choose you over your competitors. Because smartphones are great for sharing, your customers can also use their phone to share links to products with their friends via Facebook or Twitter – meaning that they can spread the word about your products for you!
Now is the time to get ahead of your competition by investing in a mobile website. These sites are specially designed for new smartphone technology, helping your company to tap into a lucrative audience of new customers that want access to your website when they’re on the go.
A mobile website is different to a regular website in both appearance and functionality. Mobile websites need to be much simpler than a conventional website in order to suit the mobile phone format. This means that there need to be fewer graphics (as these can take time to load) and less text so that your customers can access the information they need fast.
A mobile site also needs to be compatible with the different smartphones on the market and therefore needs to be coded in a clever way. If you find that your current website looks great on a desktop, but not so hot on a mobile, then it’s time to upgrade and get a mobile website that suits the purpose perfectly.
Make sure you are leading the way and contact eSterling today about your new mobile website by emailing us at enquiries@esterling.co.uk.
What is Google Shopping?
When your customers search using Google, it is possible for them to refine their search to shopping only results to help them find the products that they need. This is useful to consumers if they have a specific product in mind and they wish to compare prices between different retailers.
To try out Google shopping for yourself, simply click on “Shopping” at the top left of the Google home page and type in a product name (e.g ‘iPhone 4’). This directs you to the Google Product Search page and here you will find a list of products that are available to buy on the internet. These results can be sorted by category, price, brand and retailer – helping the user to locate exactly what they want quickly and easily.
If you have an e-commerce website, you will not want to miss the opportunity to get your products listed in the Google Shopping results. Making sure that your products appear in this search will help you attract new business and generate sales by helping your customers to find your site easily.
With the help of eSterling, it’s simple to submit a product feed to Google, as we can configure this to happen automatically from your e-commerce database. For further information about how to get your products listed in Google Shopping, please contact eSterling Limited by emailing enquiries@esterling.co.uk.
The Smart Phone Revolution
These days most of us have a mobile phone and increasingly we have smart phones, giving us easy, fast and reliable internet access everywhere we go. Whether we check our Facebook or Twitter accounts in bed, read the news headlines in our coffee break or order our Chinese takeaway on the train home, we’re thoroughly addicted.
And whether you find this trend an amazing experience, or an irritating nuisance it is doubtless a fantastic opportunity for businesses to increase their online sales. With a 24/7 internet culture which goes everywhere (and I mean everywhere – you’ve got to know at least one person who takes their smartphone into the smallest room) businesses can now reach their customers in the most unlikely of places.
To take advantage of this irritating/ exciting phenomenon, businesses are developing mobile versions of their existing web sites, specifically created to be easily navigable on a range of smart phones. By ironing out the bugs traditional sites can throw up on mobile devices, you can maintain customer interest and keep them browsing your site and buying your products wherever they may be.
Speak to your web development company today about creating a mobile version of your website, throw in some strategic online marketing and wait for the sales to roll in. Just don’t ask your customers where they were when they clicked to buy…
Keeping Visitors On Your Blog
So you have a blog, its in the search engines and fully optimised – heck you’re even getting traffic to it! But how long are visitors staying on your site? How many pages are they reading? Are they coming back and revisiting the blog on a regular basis?
To often visitors come to read your blog and bounce, that is they only read the page they landed on. You want them to do more, to read additional posts, leave comments and revisit the site time and time again. I guess the question is how do we engage readers so that they get to see a little more of your hard work.
If you can hold the readers interest by encouraging them to read more then you stand a better chance of showcasing your skills, services and authority in your chosen subject. The more a reader gets involved and comments on your posts the more likely they will return to the site and engage further in conversation.
Here are a few tip for keeping readers reading…
1. Make sure you link to related posts
Simple really, if a user has found your site via search engine then the chances are that they are interested in the topic of your post. It stands to reason that they may also be interested in any similar posts you have in your archive. Rather than expecting them to search your site for related content (witch, thanks to advances in search engines most users will not do) why not put a link to any related articles your have already published, just pop a link in the post.
2. Show off your popular posts
If you have an old post that went down well then don’t be afraid to showcase it. Compilation posts can be a great way of holding a user’s interest and get them looking around your blog. Often webmaster will take the post of the month from a year ago, sometimes they will take the most discussed posts – it’s up to you.
3. Concise and descriptive introduction
When writing the intro to your post make sure you clearly portray the topic of your post as well as descriptively summing up what the post covers. It is often a good move to add some sort of hook or question to get the reader intrigued about your post, remember controversy is king here. Remember often the introduction is displayed as a snippet to entice the reader to view the post.
4. Write a series of blog posts
Often we like to keep posts short, more often than not posts are less than 800 words long which is good as it does not over load the user and scare them off. This can mean that complex topics are either avoided or not covered in full, to get around this consider writing a series of posts on your topic. As long as you make it clear to the user that the post they are reading is part of a series then you can expect return visits each week as the reader digests each post in your series. A user that has read part 1 of your series is very likely to want to read parts 2, 3 and 4.
An added bonus is that you will have more pages all linked together, that are indexed in the search engines and therefore stand to get more traffic from the search engines for your given topic.
5. Design a blog that presents additional posts effectively
Consider how you can use design to display additional post from your archive, you may wish to include a side bar that present other blog posts either related, popular, recent or most discussed. Perhaps you would like to include a list of categories of authors. You can even explore javascript roll overs or and pop-ups that provide snippits of related content from other posts you have in your archive. Have a think – the possibilities are endless.
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Call to arrange a meeting on 0121 766 8087 or email tony@esterling.co.uk your CV.